


K-Day: The Origins of the Kaiju War

by ScreechTheMighty



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Apocalyptic Scenario, Gen, Inspired by World War Z, Only Semi-Paracanon Compliant, Pre-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-20 05:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2416460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScreechTheMighty/pseuds/ScreechTheMighty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six accounts of the six days that marked the beginning of a new era.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Foreward

**Author's Note:**

> Funny story with this one. I meant to write a more standard K-Day based fic and post it on the K-Day anniversary days. Then I started listening to the World War Z audiobook and realized that what I was writing would be much cooler in interview format. So I scrapped what I had written, [re-posted the prologue as its own fic because I liked the prologue a lot](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2171895), and started writing this. Almost two months later, it's finished. I am not a fast writer.
> 
> Some things to know: I haven't read _Tales from Year Zero_ , nor do I have any intention of doing so. While some elements of the paracanon can be found in this fic (namely, the details I could find on the PacRim wiki), other elements have been altered, ignored, or aren't present because, again, haven't read the thing. While I am remaining canon-compliant with the movie, I am being less so with the paracanon. Also, I may add more tags or content warnings as the fic progresses; if there's anything you think should be put in the tags, let me know! And finally, I hope you enjoy this fic. :3

_On August 10, 2013, a creature emerged from the Pacific Ocean, and began a six-day rampage in the state of California. The term “K-Day” is officially used for the first day, which saw the destruction of San Francisco and Oakland. However, in the collective consciousness of the public, the word is used to refer to that entire week of terror. It was the beginning of the Kaiju War, which continues to be waged to this day. It was the day when our understanding of the universe, and our place in it, changed entirely._

_The following is an account of these days, as given by six people different people who were present. I hope that by presenting these accounts, I can shed a more human light on the story of K-Day, and show how it touched not just the lives of civilians, but of those who are still fighting._


	2. The First Day

_[Anchorage Shatterdome, Alaska. December 2, 2019.]_

_[It’s difficult to get the Chief LOCCENT officer away from his desk long enough for a cup of coffee, much less an interview. Eventually, I am able to step aside with Officer Tendo Choi, a man in his late twenties, and one of the survivors of Trespasser’s initial assault on San Francisco.]_

**How long had you been you living in San Francisco before the attack?**

About four years. My parents shipped me over there when I was seventeen. I kind of a “problem child”, you know, getting into fights, skipping class, hanging out with the wrong people, stole the family car a few times. There was a school there that they were hoping would straighten me out, and I could live with my grandfather while I was there. I guess it worked. By the time K-Day rolled around, I’d made up for lost school time, got a job working at the docks, and started going to the state college. I was doing okay for myself.

**Is that where you were when Trespasser surfaced? At work?**

Yes, it was. I had a morning shift that day. I’d been there for an hour when the earthquake hit. I mean, it’s San Francisco, you get little quakes every now and again, but we really felt that one. I remember standing in the doorway of the ticket office worrying about my car. It was new, well, new to me, and I didn’t want to walk take public transit home if anything happened to it. I don’t think I had my bus card. Weird, the things you worry about in situations like that. When it was over, I checked my car and called my grandfather. He had to clean up around the house, but he was okay, so I figured I could relax. It wasn’t too long after…hell, I was still on the phone with my grandfather when the news changed. I almost missed it, but suddenly it wasn’t about the earthquake any more. On the radio, they said there was something coming out of the water, heading right for the golden gate bridge.

I stayed on the phone with my grandfather while I listened. He didn’t know what was going on. _No one_ knew what was going on. All the news could tell us was that something was tearing through the Golden Gate Bridge. Even before it started heading towards the city, I knew we had to go. I told my grandfather to meet me at the ferry as soon as possible. Once I hung up, we started opening up the ferry, because we knew people were going to want to get out of there. We got the cars already there for the morning ferry loaded on, then waited a bit to get it at full capacity before we sent it off. It made sense to get as many people out in one go.

We were lucky early on. Not everyone came rushing over to us all at once. A lot of people were in their cars taking the Oakland Bay bridge or heading south. There were other ways out of the city, and I think some people didn’t want to take the ferry because they were worried that Trespasser might still be out in the water. That gap before people started piling on gave us enough time to figure out how we were going to handle this. We called the other places, confirmed they were opening, too, talked about how we were going to get the lines to form and get as many people on the boats as possible. Some of the other guys were calling their families so they’d come down and get on the boat as soon as possible. I remember a couple leaving to get their families themselves. My supervisor told me I could go if I wanted to. I was one of the youngest people there, and they knew my grandfather was the only family I had in the city. But I wanted to stay. I wanted to make sure that other people got out. Anyway, my grandfather was in good shape. He could get out on his own. That’s what I kept telling myself.

_[He falls silent for a moment before continuing.]_

We’d just finished setting up when people started coming in larger numbers. There were people in cars, people on their bikes, even people on foot. It wasn’t exactly what you would picture. I mean, there were cars everywhere, kids crying, people asking where the ferry was, but it wasn’t like they were running each other over to get to the docks. They were scared, but the panic hadn’t hit yet. Trespasser was still by the bridge. We still had time. Staying calm and sticking to the plan, that’s what we had to do. A lot of them just wanted direction. I can’t say I blame them. That’s what I’d want in that situation, someone who knew what they were doing and who was telling you that they could get you out.

I wish it’d been that easy the entire time, but the closer Trespasser got, the more panicked people were. We could start hearing it from the docks. Sirens were going off, big vehicles were going by, the ground still shook a few times. Then the police started showing up where we were and taking over directing the crowds. From that point on, we were _officially_ part of the evacuation. I think that seeing people in uniform was what really started scaring people. It drove it home that this was actually happening, y’know? But they were still under control. The ferry came back, we loaded it off a second time, and sent it off into the water with no problems. It was just coming back for a third round when we heard it for the first time…that _roar._ You ever heard a Kaiju roar from a close distance?

It’s the worst sound in the world. It felt like it drowned out _everything._ It was still a ways off, and we weren’t in any immediate danger that we knew of, but knowing that made it worse. How big must this thing be if I could hear it _that_ clearly from _that_ far away? Trespasser was a category III, did you know that? The first Kaiju was the biggest one we’d see for years. And when I heard it roar, I’d never felt more insignificant in my life.

The chaos hit after we heard Trespasser. It was a riot of panicked people trying to get onto that ferry. I climbed up on a car so I wouldn’t get trampled. The police were shouting for everyone to stay calm, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy worrying about my grandfather. Like I said, he could take care of himself, but against all those people? I kept thinking he’d be crushed. I couldn’t see him from where I was, so I tried calling him. No answer. I told myself that he probably couldn’t get to his phone, and I could try again when everyone had calmed down. I wouldn’t let myself think about…about the fact that he might have been crushed. I couldn’t think about that.

By the time the ferry got there, the police were able t calm everyone down enough that it wasn’t a _total_ massacre when we loaded. A few people got hurt, but getting them on wasn’t the problem. It was getting them to stop. No one likes being told they have to wait for the next ferry on a _good_ day, and this time around, it was a matter of life and death. A lot of people gave up and decided to take their chances with the roads or with another ferry. I still hadn’t seen my grandfather after everyone loaded up, so I tried calling him again. The network was shit, everyone was trying to call everyone at the same time, I don’t know why I thought calling him would be a good idea. But I did get an answer. I could barely hear him before the call dropped entirely. All I worked out was that he wasn’t near the docks. He hadn’t been able to get out of the city yet. That’s when I left work. The situation was under control, and there wasn’t much some scrawny kid who was usually just there to sell tickets and sweep up after people could do.

**What was it like, going into the city?**

Pandemonium. I had to go on foot because I couldn’t get to my car, but honestly I was better off that way. There were so many people trying to get out by car, it was a complete deadlock. I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if I had taken my car. A lot of people had just ditched their cars and started running. If there was some kind of evacuation route set up, people stopped following it a long time ago. It was a free-for-all. I almost got run over by a car or a guy on a bike more times than I could count.

The military had showed up since the earthquake. The deeper I went, the more I saw of them; cops in full gear, national guard, coast guard, I don’t know. Most of them were going after the Kaiju, not trying to keep the peace. Even if there had been guys trying to keep the peace, I don’t know how much good they could’ve done. That’s not a hit against them. They were doing the best they could, I know that. There were just so many scared people. There wasn’t anything anyone could do. None of them really noticed me at first or tried to stop me. They probably thought I was trying to get away from that thing. I don’t know how long I ran, but eventually I ended up where my grandfather said he’d been…which was where the Kaiju had already been.

**Your grandfather was in Trespasser’s path?**

Not originally, no. I guess with all the traffic he’d decided to go through the places Trespasser had already been, thinking it might be easier. Trust me, it wasn’t. I could barely get through on foot. It looked like someone had bombed the place. There was nothing but torn up buildings and the sound of that thing off in the distance. It was rough going, but I did find my grandfather. And, even better, I was able to find him before I hit any Kaiju Blue. I know now that it was becoming a problem not too far from where I was…a mile, maybe less? That was where the military had made Trespasser bleed a bit. Good in theory, not so much in practice. Now you’ve got a toxic agent just lying around in the street. Anyone walking by’s at risk for an infection. But, again, I found my grandfather before I ever saw the blood. He was on foot, along with some other people. They all had this lost look to them, like they were in shock.

**Where they showing signs of a Kaiju Blue infection?**

A couple of them had started coughing, but I don’t think any of them had gotten close enough to get a big hit of the vapors. No one knew how dangerous the Blue was at the time, but the color kept a lot of people away. If you’ve seen it, you know. It just _screams_ “stay away”. It gives me a headache when I look at _pictures_ of it. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it even if I didn’t know what it was. And I think everyone else had the same feeling. Not that it mattered. Even a little bit of that stuff right in your lungs will mess you up.

_[He pauses again before reaching in his pocket.]_

Hey, do you mind if I…?

**Not at all.**

_[He produces a packet of cigarettes, standard PPDC tobacco ration sized boxes, and pulls one out.]_

I’m supposed to be quitting, but you know, old addictions.

_[There’s another stretch of silence as he lights the cigarette, takes a quick drag, then continues.]_

My grandfather was pretty shaken up when I got to him, but fine otherwise. By the time we got to somewhere Trespasser _hadn’t_ run through, everyone was gone. Nothing but empty streets and abandoned cars. Off in the distance, you could hear the Kaiju roar, gunfire…some planes flew overhead, and a few helicopters. I tried to get their attention, but I don’t know what I was thinking. What were they going to do, stop for two guys in the middle of the street? Yeah, right. So, we tried to head for the ferries again. I think we got halfway there before the military found us and gave us a lift. They dropped us off somewhere with helicopters, and _those_ took us south. I really thought we were home clear. And then…and then Grandfather started coughing.

_[He stops for another drag, this one longer than the ones before.]_

I mean…he’d been dazed, weak, a bit short of breath before, but I thought that was from the running. There was all kinds of shit in the air, and even I’d been coughing earlier. But by the time the helicopter landed, his cough wasn’t getting any better. It was worse. After we landed, we were hurried over to some official-looking people who pointed us to some _other_ official-looking people who saw Grandfather and stuck us both on this van to a hospital. They kept asking us questions—did you come in contact with fluids from the creature? Were you anywhere near fluids from the creature? They stayed calm, I’ll give them that. Even when Grandfather started coughing up blue, I was the only one who freaked out.

_[He makes an amused huffing noise.]_

One of them was nice enough to tell me they didn’t know what was wrong with him. Harsh, I guess, but I’d take that over being lied to.

When we reached the hospital, it was a disaster all over again. There were a lot more wounded people than I’d expected, though I don’t know why. A lot of them were like Grandfather, pale and coughing up blue. A couple of these haggard-looking orderlies took a quick look at us and stuck us in a corner with some people who weren’t coughing as badly. Triage, that’s what it was. We were the ones who weren’t going to drop dead immediately as far as they knew. We could wait.

**Were you worried about being contaminated yourself?**

A little, but I wasn’t going to just leave him there alone. I’d already put him through enough. You know how many times I tried to run away before I cut the shit and turned my life around? How many times I just ditched after school or got in fights and he was the one who had to cover my ass? I’d been a bad enough grandson already. Leaving…

_[He stops and rubs his eyes.]_

Sorry. You don’t want to hear about that. It’s…nothing. Point was, I wasn’t going to leave him, no matter what the risks were. And I’m glad I didn’t, because…

_[It’s at this point that Mr. Choi drops his cigarette and puts it out. At first, I think I should terminate the interview, as he looks agitated. But before I can ask, he continues.]_

I don’t know what happened. Maybe he had something building up in his lungs even before he started coughing or…maybe it got in his blood and started putting him in septic shock or something. I don’t know. I just know that one second I was talking to him about how freaked my parents were going to be and the next he was on the ground…and he couldn’t breathe…

_[He stops talking, and again I consider terminating the interview. But again, he continues.]_

Some orderlies came over and carted him off. I tried to follow, but they kept me back. I started screaming at them. I don’t even remember what I said. I do remember one of the doctors saying, “Sir, you have to calm down. There’s nothing you can do for him now.” That shut me up because he was right. He was absolutely right. There was nothing I could do for him. So…I waited. After a while, one of the orderlies came over and told me that I could see him again. No… _should_ see him, that’s how he put it. That’s when I knew, even if…if I didn’t want to think about it.

…my mom gave me this before I left for San Francisco.

_[Here, Mr. Choi holds up his wrist. There is a rosary wrapped around it.]_

I started carrying it around with me after I stopped being such an ass, but that was the first time I’d ever really used it. At first I was praying for him to live, you know, _please, God, don’t let him die._ He probably heard that a lot on K-Day. But when I saw Yey-when I saw my grandfather again, I knew, he wasn’t…he wasn’t going to make it. Suddenly, I’m not praying for him to live. I’m just praying that it won’t hurt. How sick is that?

_[He grips the crucifix tightly in his palm.]_

They didn’t even have him hooked up to anything. I remember standing by the bed. And…I do remember what I said to him. I said I was sorry and that I loved him…I didn’t want to cry, but I was. I almost missed it when he said my name, he was so…

…I’m sorry, can I…have a minute? Please?

_[I end up leaving Mr. Choi outside, where we were conducting our interview. Half an hour later, he texts me, saying that he’s ready to resume the interview. We meet in the Shatterdome’s recreation area, and he picks up the story as though the gap in time hadn’t occurred.]_

The last thing he said to me was “Endure this”. Or, that’s all of it I could make out. After that he stopped talking. Stopped breathing. There wasn’t any beeping, no one tried to revive him…it wouldn’t have done any good. For a while, I was the only one who knew he was dead. Eventually someone found us and took his body away. They needed that bed, after all. There were still injured people coming in. I left not too long after they took his body. I was fine. There was no reason for me to stick around. I was just in the way.

**Where did you go?**

Back to where the helicopter had dropped me off. I was on foot, so it was getting dark by the time I reached it. I think one of the guys there was going to start yelling at me, you know, “You’re not supposed to be here” and all that. But maybe he recognized me from earlier, or maybe I looked shitty enough that he had pity on me. He gave me a jacket and some water and got another car to take me somewhere else. There was a motel down the road that they’d basically taken over. I had to share a room with three guys I didn’t know, two from San Franciso and one from Oakland. That was how I found out that Trespasser had headed for Oakland next. When I heard, I started laughing. The other guys asked me what was so funny, and I said, “We were sending people to Oakland.” All those people we thought we were saving, and all we did was delay the inevitable. Maybe they did get out. I’m sure most of them did. Trespasser was still just across the harbor, and I bet most of them had planned on getting the hell out of California entirely. But at that moment, all I could think was how much I’d fucked up…pardon my language.

**It’s all right.**

Yeah, you can edit that out, right?

_[He smiles, but it’s short-lived.]_

You know what I wish, more than anything? That I’d taken a picture. Raleigh Becket…he’s one of the pilots here, good guy…he has a lot of pictures of Anchorage from before it became so militarized. He was always a shutterbug, even when he was a teenager. I tease him about it, but he has something to remind him of what his home was like before all of this. I don’t have anything. I know they have plans to rebuild, once the Bay area is safe to live in, but the skyline, the streets…none of it’s going to be the same. My house isn’t going to be there, my grandfather isn’t going to be there. The San Francisco I know is gone, forever. God, I wish I had a picture.

_[He falls silent.]_

“Endure this.” I mean, I did in the end, but for a while, I didn’t think I could. My life as I knew was completely gone. What was there to endure for?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually had this chapter up and posted here before I scrapped the original version. [You can check it out here](http://screechthemighty.tumblr.com/post/99360833133/so-because-im-going-to-start-posting-mark-ii-of) and play a game of "Spot the differences".


	3. The Second Day

_[Vancouver Island Shatterdome, Canada. April 21, 2019.]_

_[It’s quiet in the Shatterdome. Everyone’s guard is up, but there’s none of the tenseness that comes with the immediate risk of a Kaiju attack. Luna Pentecost is able to find us a quiet corner of the cafeteria, and offers me one of the boxed sodas that are commonplace in Shatterdomes such as this. It’s best to drink them quickly, before they go flat.]_

**So, you were stationed in California as part of a training program?**

Yes, I was. Right up in Vandenberg. I was actually set to head home, but then Trespasser showed up. That put everyone’s plans on hold. I was having a bite to eat when I first heard about it. Suddenly, people are running by and saying, “Turn on the TV, you have to see this”. When we turn it on, there’s a giant monster tearing through the city. I thought it was a movie or a sick joke at first. I think a lot of people did. But reality sunk in pretty quickly.

They sent up a lot of guys on that first day. I thought they’d send us up, too, but they never did. They probably didn’t want to use pilots from another country, you know? Didn’t want to step on any diplomatic toes. So all Tamsin and I could do was sit and watch.

**Tamsin being Tamsin Servier.**

Yeah, that’s right, the Jaeger pilot. She used to be one of us _normal_ folk, keep in mind, back before the Jaeger program took off. She wasn’t any happier about us sitting and waiting than I was. It was torture, seeing that thing tear apart San Franciso and not being able to do anything about it. I mean, objectively you know you’re not going to be the one to just roll in and kill it single-handedly. That’s not how it works. But that didn’t make not being able to do anything any easier.

 We volunteered the next day. By then, they’d already lost several pilots, so they were willing to accept our help. We got assigned to this group that had a few guys missing, and before we knew it, we were off the ground. We left at around one in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day out. That’s a weird thing to remember, I know, but at the time I was grateful. Things were going to be rough as it was. Bad weather would have just made it impossible.

The target—Trespasser, I mean—was just outside of Oakland when we found him, near a highway. Not sure which one, it didn’t really matter for us. First time I saw it, I remember thinking how _big_ it was. I already knew it was huge, I’d seen the footage. But there’s a difference between seeing something like that on the telly and seeing it in person. It was like looking at a walking mountain. I wasn’t sure what we were supposed to do at first. How can you fight something as big as that? But then I saw it was bleeding. Reports we’d heard about the Blue, so we knew what that stuff was probably doing to people down below, but…it was kind of a relief seeing it? I know, I know, that sounds crazy, but if it was bleeding, it meant we’d hurt it. And if we could make it bleed, we could kill it.

We knew they were going to start bombing the thing if we couldn’t put a serious dent in it, which was a serious no-win. If we used bombs, we could cause just as much damage as Trespasser was causing. If we didn’t, we might not kill it quickly enough, and then Trespasser would just hurt more people. This was our last chance to put a serious dent in it without causing a lot of collateral damage. We just had to keep flying as close as possible and hit it with everything the plane had. Even if we weren’t sure it would work.

**What were some of the difficulties you faced when fighting Trespasser?**

Well, we didn’t really know where to shoot. Some weak points are obvious, like the eyes, but we didn’t know if shooting it in the chest would do anything. Its heart and major organs could be in its arse for all we knew. And getting to the weak points, or where we thought they were, wasn’t easy. It had four arms, right, and they did a pretty good job of blocking the front of the chest. Not to mention if you got to close to the head, all it had to do was look to the left or right and _bam._

_[She snaps her fingers.]_

You were gone. And that wasn’t just a risk for the head, either. The thing was so damn big that even it changing direction a little could put it right in your path. It didn’t have to attack us. I don’t think it was even _trying._ We lost a lot of guys that way. That was how we lost a guy on that attack…how I almost bit it, too.

**If you’re not comfortable discussing it…**

It’s fine. Don’t worry. I can talk about it.

**If you’re sure.**

I’m sure.

I can’t remember exactly how long we’d been shooting at it before we went in for that last strafing run. I was on the left side, Tamsin was on the right, there was another guy in front of me. I didn’t find out his name until afterwards. Daniel. Nice bloke, by all accounts. We were trying to get it in the eyes when Trespasser started turning. Like I said, it didn’t have to move much to put you a collision course. One second I’m getting ready to launch a torpedo, the next I’m looking at a fireball and Trespasser’s face. I pulled up, but I wasn’t fast enough. I’d been hit by some of the debris from Daniel’s plane. Not enough to kill me immediately, obviously, but I wasn’t staying in the air much longer. I remember thinking that I had to get as far away from Trespasser as possible, because when I landed, I did _not_ want to land in its way.

**Landed? Were you going to try and land the plane?**

I was too far gone for that. I had to eject. But if I ejected too close I could land right in front of the Kaiju, or…I dunno, _on_ it. I’m dead, either way. I took the plane as far away from it as I could and then I ejected. Ejecting is awful, for the record. It’s not just that I could’ve gotten compression fractures or God only knows what other kind of physical damage. It’s the ride back down. You’re strapped to the chair, drifting down on a parachute, completely powerless. I had was a good distance away, but Trespasser was still _much_ closer than I would’ve liked. And…

…You know, I kept thinking about my brother. Stacker? Yeah, that Stacker, you know the one. I’d called him before I left for the mission, and he wasn’t answering his phone so I had to leave a voicemail. I’d told him that Tamsin and I had volunteered to fight that thing, don’t be mad at us, I’ll call you when I get back. That kind of thing. I kept wondering if that message would be the last thing I’d ever say to him. It’s not healthy to think like that, I know, but I couldn’t help myself. I also remember thinking that Tamsin had better damn well survive that attack. If Stacker was going to hear I’d died, it’d be better if it was from her, not some guy in a suit. That was probably really selfish of me, but I couldn’t help it.

I had to get over that, too. No time for morbid thoughts. I had to figure out what I was going to do when I landed. I figured if I headed north for a bit, then doubled back around, maybe I’d be able to find some emergency crew or military or someone who’d be able to get me a ride back to the base. Worst case scenario, I’d have to hitch a ride from some civvie who was crazy enough to still be there. I landed, checked to see if I was hurt, then took off as soon as I could. I wasn’t sure where I was, but let me tell you, it was _eerie._ Most people had the good sense to get out of there, so when I did hit places where people should’ve been, they were abandoned. You ever seen pictures of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone? All those completely empty houses and buildings, like everyone vanished into thin air? It was exactly like that. The only thing I could hear was my own breathing and the sound of Trespasser off in the distance. As I was running, I realized I could probably just break in somewhere and borrow their phone. There was this convenience store that was unlocked, so I went in there to call base. Sorry to whoever owns the place. If you’re reading this, I wiped my feet.

Whoever answered the phone was able to direct me to some guys not too far from where I was. It was still a bit of a walk, hot day, and I was still all geared up, but I made it. They were clearing out a neighborhood that had been partially wrecked. I saw a lot of people there who’d survived somehow—scared, covered in ashes, a lot of them were crying. The Blue was a big concern, Kaiju Blue? The first thing the National Guard guys did when I arrived was shove a gas mask at me. _Don’t go near those barriers,_ they told me. _We don’t know what that stuff is, but it’ll mess you up._ There were people there with Blue burns on their arms, their face, their chests. It looked they’d taken a direct hit from napalm or something. I never want to see that again.

I ended up staying and helping out wherever I could. A lot of it was just directing traffic, car traffic, foot traffic. _Head this way if you have hurt party members. If you’re on foot, there’s transportation over here. If you’re in a car, you can go this way or this way._ I didn’t know the area, so I just parroted what the other guys were saying and hoped it was right. I think we were there for an hour, maybe two before we had to pull out. The wind had changed directions, so the mist from the Blue was more of a threat. We had to drive past a lot of the damaged areas, abandoned areas, sections that would become the California Exclusion Zone. I still think about that sometimes, wonder how different it looks now.

**What happened when you got back to the base?**

I was debriefed, got to see Tamsin. She was fine, worried sick about me, but fine. Then I had to call Stacker, and he was _pissed._ You don’t know true fear until your older brother starts yelling at you over the phone because you did something stupid. _You could’ve been killed, what the hell were you thinking,_ so on. I felt horrible at the time. I still kind of do. I must’ve put him through hell.  We were just talking about what had happened when we heard that they were going to try a bombing run against Trespasser. Not nukes, not yet, but still…

_[She shakes her head.]_

Can you imagine what that must have looked like? Not just watching everything go up like that, but seeing Trespasser walk away from it. They leveled everything down there. Fires went up along that entire stretch of highway and…part of this national park, I think, I know there was a forest nearby. But it was completely gone. Nothing could have survived that, nothing _should_ have survived that. But then that monster walked away. We made him bleed, yeah, and those bombs slowed him down, but it wasn’t enough to kill him. All we did was make Oblivion bay. Miles of torched earth and Kaiju Blue.

Look, I try to stay optimistic. Even back then, I kept telling myself that the thing had to die eventually. But I saw the news footage. That day, when Trespasser walked away from Oblivion Bay like it was nothing, a lot of guys started to think that we’d never be able to beat that thing. And I understood why. At the time, I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to beat it, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to see what this chapter would've looked like had I not scrapped the original? Check out the original [here](http://screechthemighty.tumblr.com/post/99501705708/since-i-posted-the-next-chapter-of-my-k-day-fic)!
> 
> Also, if you're reading this and wondering, "Didn't Luna die in Tales From Year Zero?" yes, she did. To paraphrase Nick Fury, "I recognize that Travis Beacham has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I have elected to ignore it." And I probably should have clarified that when I first posted the chapter. My bad. >.>


	4. The Third Day

_[The Jaeger Academy, Kodiak Island. March 5, 2019.]_

_[I find Naomi Sokolov in the K-Science section of the Jaeger Academy, interviewing several of the scientists in training. Once her interview is over, we remain in the room, staring up at the remains of long-dead Kaiju as we speak.]_

I’m not actually from California. It was just pure dumb luck that I was there. I had taken a road trip with some friends of mine down to Vegas, to celebrate all of us graduating. We decided to stay closer to the coast as we drove back up. We figured, “Hey, last hurrah before adulthood, maybe we can hit a few beaches or something.” We heard the first reports about Trespasser on the radio. At first we thought it was like—this is stupid, but we thought it was like a radio play. Like that Orson Welles version of War of the Worlds that allegedly had people thinking aliens actually landed? We thought it was like that. But people kept talking about it on more than one channel, so when we got to the hotel, we turned on the news. Boom. Monster’s still there. We stayed in that hotel for the first two days of the attack. We didn’t want to go forward at first because we weren’t sure where the thing was going or how fast it was moving. Good thing we didn’t leave. Otherwise, I never would have ended up in Antioch.

**What made you decide to go to Antioch?**

This is going to sound really stupid, but it bugged the _hell_ out of me that there wasn’t any good footage. I wanted to be a journalist, a _real_ journalist, someone who did important stories. And here was a story right in front of me, biggest one of the century, and there wasn’t any good footage of the Kaiju. The reporters were too scared to get close. I mean, I don’t blame them for that _now._ I’ve seen what Kaiju Blue can do. But at the time, I was young and stupid and annoyed.  Didn’t they want to record this? Didn’t they want people to know? I wanted people to know. I wanted to know myself. So I grabbed my camera and took the car. Two of my friends went with me, the only ones who were as crazy as I was. The others stayed in the motel.

**How did you find Trespasser?**

Honestly, we just looked at where he’d been and tried to guess from there. We were lucky we got it right. Tracking Kaiju is kind of like trying to guess where a hurricane is going, except hurricanes don’t have minds of their own. That thing could have changed direction at any time. For all we knew, by the time we reached Antioch he had turned around and was headed back for the Bay. Lucky us, he hadn’t. Lucky for everyone back in the Bay, too. It was already a damn wreck from all the Blue and the bombs they dropped near Oakland.  And yeah, before you ask, we knew about the Blue. We stopped by a place on the way and picked up those...I don’t want to call them gas masks, ‘cause they’re really not, but those breather things you wear when you’re doing construction work. We didn’t know if they’d work, but it was better than going in half-assed and risking getting our lungs filled up with that shit.

_[She shrugs and glances up at the various Kaiju part tanks in the room.]_

We heard him before we saw him. Off in the distance somewhere, roaring…heard some jets overhead, too. It was about at that point that they were ceasing air strikes because they were too dangerous. I don’t think I knew that at the time, and I probably wouldn’t have cared. Once we figured out we were in his path, we parked the car somewhere not too far away. I got out and started running with one of my friends right behind me. The other one stayed with the car so we could make a quit exit. The ground was shaking while I ran and I remember how clearly I could see him. Right up ahead, big as a skyscraper. Once we were close enough that we could see him clearly, we tried to find a building high enough that we could get a good view, just ahead of him so we wouldn’t miss anything, close, but not like, _directly_ in the way. I was crazy. I wasn’t suicidal.

_[She laughs.]_

Anyway, it took us a while to get up to the top floor. By the time we were, Trespasser was more or less right next to us. Perfect shot. I grabbed my camera and started filming. That’s my friend’s voice you hear in the video, by the way, not mine. I only screamed towards the end because he got really close. Before that I was too…awed? Like, in the sense of standing before something you’ve never seen before, but are sure is going to kill you kind of awed. It was…it made you feel small, you know? That and I was probably in shock. Seeing something that big in person is a lot different than seeing it on some tiny-ass TV.

**What did you notice about Trespasser? Did it seem injured at this point?**

Oh, yeah, definitely. He was moving stiffly, like how people move when their entire bodies hurt? And his skin looked different. I’ve seen pictures of what Trespasser looked like when he first got out of the water and  he didn’t look quite like that. It looked like he’d been burned somewhere along the line. Which makes sense, I guess, with bombing and all that.  And he was…I don’t want to say smoking, because he wasn’t. It was the mist from the Kaiju Blue.

**Were you hit by the Blue?**

No, we were lucky. The wind was blowing just right, so the mist was moving away from us. But we were still worried. Again, crazy. Not suicidal. Even if we weren’t entire sure what it _was_ , when you see a weird mist coming off a giant-ass alien, you don’t want it touching you. I’ve seen enough scifi to know that.

**So it wasn’t the Blue that made you leave?**

Not really? It was more the fact that he was getting too close. You know that scene in like…every Jurassic Park movie where there’s a glass of water and it gets ripples or spills because the dinosaur is getting closer? We were in the “glass of water” scenario.  And I swear to God, that thing looked at us. You can see it in the footage. Right before we ran, it looked right at us. I don’t know if it realized we were there or was just looking out for any jets and happened to spot us. Didn’t matter at the time. When a giant-ass monster looks dead at you, that’s your cue to leave. We booked it out of there, got off the roof, ran back to the car. The whole time, I thought for sure it was going to chase after us. But it didn’t. I guess a couple of humans weren’t really worth its time. We got out of Antioch okay, and we thought we were home free. But then we ran into the military. They weren’t too far away and they made us pull over. When they realized we’d come from Antioch, they asked us to come with them. They wanted to check us for Kaiju Blue infection. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but then they told us _exactly_ what the Blue could do. At that point, we only knew that people from San Francisco or anywhere near where that thing had been were getting sick. We didn’t know about the specifics. Even if they were saying it just to scare us, I figured it wasn’t worth the risk. And don’t get me wrong, they were nice and all, but it was still pretty rough. They took our breathing masks to examine the filters, checked our clothes, hell they made us shower down entirely. Even the friend that didn’t get out of the car had to shower down. That’s how thorough they were.

**Did they confiscate your video footage when they found out about it?**

I thought they were going to. I really did. That’s the cliché, right? The military confiscating any footage to cover it up and all that? It’s in every damn movie. But they didn’t. They knew about it, they checked my camera, but they didn’t take the camera or delete the footage. They just asked if they could upload a copy of the footage. And it wasn’t even the military who asked, it was one of the scientists who’d looked at our breathing masks. Donovan, I think her name was? She was one of the early K-Science people. Nice lady. She was really excited about the footage. Kept saying it was the closest they’d gotten to the thing and had intact footage.

**Do you know what they used the footage for?**

At the time? Just to see what kind of damage they were doing. Check for injuries, see what kind of affects the bombs had on him, how the Blue was moving in the wind. She asked us a lot of questions, too, about how the buildings were shaking, which way the wind was blowing, if we _smelled_ anything funny, of all things. But eventually they let us go, and I ended up taking a plane home after that. Somewhere during that entire decontamination thing, I just…I started panicking, I guess? It hit me that I’d just been not too far away from that thing. I could’ve died. Of course that kind of thing hits me when I’m getting naked, right? Always the best time.

_[She laughs again, and shakes her head.]_

Point is, that’s where I was for the rest of the week. Seattle, in front of my TV. And you know what? That was the first time I wasn’t upset I was missing out on the action. After what I saw…well, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get too close again. Not for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may be including Naomi Sokolov in some of my other works, because the world needs more intrepid lady reporters. There will not be any love triangles, though. I swear that right now.


	5. The Fourth Day

_[Petaluma, California. August 3, 2019.]_

_[Despite its proximity to the California Exclusion Zone, Petaluma still has its share of residents. Among them is Doctor Ed Yeo. We meet at in his office in the free clinic where he currently works. At the time of K-Day, he was a resident of Reno, Nevada, and worked at one of the hospitals there.]_

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: it wasn’t just the nukes that made the Exclusion Zone. Everyone talks about the nukes, or the bombing near Oakland, but it was the Blue that really did it. All that goddamn Kaiju Blue.

**You saw a lot of Kaiju Blue cases, is that right?**

“A lot”? That’s an understatement. I had military guys coming in with it, civilians, anyone who was unlucky enough to get close. It wasn’t bad the first few days. They were sending a lot of people south then. But the further inland it got, the more cases they sent our way.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’d had my share of busy and rough nights before K-Day. That’s what you get for working in an ER in the city. But I’d never seen that many people in the hospital at once. And the worst part was, at first, we had no idea what to do about it.

The skin contact victims had the first clues. I don’t know if you’ve seen the pictures, but it’s like…it’s like a chemical burn. Direct contact causes the skin to go all red, blisters like anything, keepings eating down into the skin. And it’s thick and sticky, too, so trying to get it out of the wounds was almost impossible. We tried treating the skin cases with every kind of burn treatment we could think of, but nothing we put on the wounds was making them any better. And they got infected so easily, no matter how clean we kept them. That’s how we lost a lot of the Blue victims. I sometimes wonder if that’s another effect of the Blue, if it does something to the immune system…never did have the chance to study that. You’d have to ask one of those K-Science sorts.

**So the coughing is caused by burns to the lungs?**

You got it. See, when Kaiju get shed blood, it makes this vapor for the first…shit, hour? Half an hour? It depends on how much it is. There’s a ratio or something, someone came up with it, I don’t remember. Point is, the blood partially evaporates, and the mist has the same effect as the blood. Skin contact with the Blue mist leads to less serious burns…less serious in contrast to the full skin-contact burns, I mean, they could still be nasty if you were hit with enough. Inhaling it leads to lung damage, throat damage…damage to everything on the way down, basically.

I still remember the sound of the coughing. You took one step into the ER, that’s all you heard. It was this awful, thick sound, like when there’s mucus buildup in the lungs but they can’t cough it all up. People were coughing up blood, and this blue stuff. It was harmless, aside from stinging a bit when it hit your skin, but it got on everything. The floor, the chairs, my scrubs. I had to buy whole new sets after it was over. That blue stains wouldn’t come out. You can go to the hospital I worked at today, and there are still blue stains on the floor.

Anyway, like I said, the worst of it was later into the week. On the first day, didn’t really get any patients. We watched the news, we had no idea what was going on, we prayed it wouldn’t hit us. Day two, a few people got airlifted out to us. They were mostly people with other injuries, you know, from rubble or such. Even if they had Blue contamination—and most of them did—the complications from the other injuries took priority, and were usually what killed them. The patients started coming in steadily on day three. There was also word from the hospitals who had been dealing with this for longer. Basically, the word was “We have no idea how to treat this. Just make the patients as comfortable as possible, treat symptoms, hopefully they’ll get over it on their own.” Right. That was a _big_ help. We knew we needed something to counteract the Blue, and fast. We tried a lot of things on that day, every inhalant and pill and scrub to clear out the blue and stave off infection. But nothing was working. We just kept trying and hoping the patients wouldn’t die. Then day four hit.

**That was the worst day for you?**

Oh, absolutely. They couldn’t send them to Sacramento anymore, because they’d started evacuating that area, so we took on a lot of patients. Some scientists showed up as well. They didn’t have many more answers, but they were trying. I barely saw them at first. There was just…so much happening, so many people dying all around me _._ I kept working and working, trying to keep triage going, hauling people off to other doctors. After a while, I was assigned to the Blue victims that we’d “made comfortable”. I was cleaning their breathing masks when they got too much blood on them, watching to make sure their lungs weren’t flooding with blood, trying whatever inhalant or salve the doctors or the scientists decided to try. It kind of bugged me that we were using people as lab rats, but what did they have to lose? If they didn’t get the treatment, they died. If they did and it didn’t work, they were dead, too. But if there was even a slim chance it could work, then it was probably worth it.

It was about…I dunno, four o’clock in the afternoon? I’d barely slept and hadn’t had lunch, so I had no idea what time it was. A new group of people had been airlifted in, and there was this kid…well, I say kid, he was probably seventeen? Not the first person that age to come in. But that kid…he almost broke me. I have a younger brother, you know, and he looked a lot like my brother did at that age. He ended up in my room, and when I went to make sure he was all right, it hit me that there was nothing I could do. All I could do was keep him alive a little longer.

_[He ducks his head briefly.]_

I…I froze. Had to step out of the room for a bit. There are a few places in the ER that are usually quiet. You can step in there and catch your breath. It had been non-stop for four days. I was surprised I didn’t break sooner. But I knew I had to hold it together. What I was going through didn’t matter. Other people were dying. I had to worry about that.

By the time I got back, one of the scientists passed me an experimental cure and told me to give it to him. I gave it to him, and stuck close to him whenever I could. It’s stupid, I know, but I didn’t want to leave him alone. At first, it didn’t look like it was doing him much good. His cough actually got worse, at first. But after a while he…he stopped coughing up blue. It was just red.

**And was that a good thing?**

I didn’t really count it as a _good_ sign, but it was _some_ kind of change. Like I said, nothing before had made any change. The fact that the blue had stopped, even if he was still coughing up blood, meant that something had changed. I grabbed one of the scientists, and they dragged him off for a lung scan. When the results came back, it was obvious that his lungs were torn up right to hell. We still weren’t sure if he was going to make it. But a lot of the Blue that had built up in his lungs was gone. Most of it, in fact. I guess whatever they’d given him had made the Blue less sticky, so he could actually cough it up. They started giving all of it to the patients immediately. They figured out a version that you could put on the skin wounds to draw out the blue, too. That helped clean out the injuries.

**How many people did it save?**

Not a lot, unfortunately. I wish I could tell you it was some kind of miracle cure, that when they handed it out, everyone was fine and we didn’t have another fatality. But let’s face it, most of the people who were getting it were too far gone. We might have gotten the Blue out of their systems, but their lungs were still a wreck, and the wounds were still really prone to infection. The ones who’d been there the longest, even if we got them the medicine, were past saving already. It made them more comfortable, I suppose.

**…did the boy who…?**

He was okay. “Okay” in a relative sense. His lungs are shit and breathing is hard, but hey, he’s alive.

_[Doctor Yeo abruptly starts coughing. The fit lasts about a minute. It takes him another minute to recover.]_

Jesus…sorry.

**It’s all right. Do you need a minute?**

Nah, I’m used to it.

_[When he sighs, his breath sounds strained and heavy.]_

I was out of the hospital after that day. I guess the people in charge realized how worn-down I looked. They told me to go home, and that they’d call me if they needed me. They never called me back in. I spent the next few days at home, trying to catch up on sleep, and trying not to think about what was going on at the hospital. I still don’t know why they didn’t call me back. Heaven knew they needed the doctors. But…I guess they needed doctors who were actually functioning. I was on the verge of another breakdown. I cried a few times when I got home, just from the stress. It’s a miracle I ever worked in the ER again.

I still hear that coughing sometimes, when I’ve had a rough night. I’ll go home, I’ll close my eyes, and I’ll be back there. For me, that’s the worst part: feeling like it hasn't ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I openly admit to making all of this up on the fly as I was writing the chapter. Good news: since it's aliens I can just make stuff up?? But yeah, if you notice any glaring errors, or would just like to discuss the potential science implications of caustic alien blood, leave a comment! Made up science biology is always fun to talk about.
> 
> Also, I slipped a reference to Zombies, Run! in here.


	6. The Fifth Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: The Alison Alvarez in this chapter is, in fact, Alison Choi. She's just not married to (or even dating) Tendo yet. That's a few years down the line.

_[Anchorage Shatterdome, Alaska. December 2, 2019.]_

_[Munitions officer Alison Alvarez is confined to a shoebox of an office in the otherwise large Shatterdome. She has managed to keep the space bright with the help of a few lamps and a trio of glass birds on her desk. She stops to rub some grease off of her face before we begin.]_

I always feel a bit ridiculous telling people about this, because I’m not a Sacramento native. Most of my family is from Phoenix, and that’s where I was living at the time. But we’d traveled up to Sacramento to visit some extended family. I mean, I thought about living there, if I could find a job. Hole up with my cousins until I could get my own place, get out of my parent’s house and into the real world, that kind of thing. Needless to say, K-Day changed all of that.

**Why didn’t you leave the city earlier? Cut the trip short?**

My dad suggested it, but mom was worried about leaving my aunt and grandma. My uncle was out of town on business and couldn’t get back, and grandma was in the hospital getting treated for this really bad stomach bug. If we left, it would be just my aunt and my cousins to look after grandma. Mom didn’t want that. It was a good thing we stayed. I don’t know how my aunt would have evacuated without help.

**When were you told to evacuate the city?**

People started suggesting it on day two, especially after the bombing didn’t do anything to hurt Trespasser. “You should get out of the city, we don’t know if it’s coming here”, that kind of thing. It was just civilians suggesting that, not an official order, but a lot of people left. I don’t blame them. It looked like it was heading right for us, and we all saw what it had done to San Francisco. But we weren’t told we _had_ to leave until day four. “All residents of Sacramento must leave within 24 hours”, that was what they told us. No one really argued. Trespasser was _close_ by then, and considering that it had basically wrecked every city and suburb in the way, it made sense it would head towards Sacramento.

**So you spent most of day four getting ready to go?**

Well, most of my family did. _I_ spent most of it making sure that my grandmother would be getting out okay. They evacuated a lot of the hospitals first, and she was still sick, so I went over there with my dad to make sure that they were getting her out. She was feeling better, and she didn’t need life support or anything, so she didn’t get out right away. They had a system. People who were really sick or hurt and needed to get to a hospital right away were first…no, actually, they were second. Kaiju Blue patients were first, then the really sick. Then people in the middle, then people who weren’t that bad off. We were there until the late afternoon, when they finally got my grandmother on a bus. Then we went home and helped with the packing. Driving to and from the hospital was a pain in the ass. The streets were _packed_ with people leaving or going to get their family members. And it didn’t help that there were military guys everywhere. People kept slowing down to see what was going on or ask questions. Dad was swearing up a storm. I think we considered just ditching the car and walking. It probably would have been faster. By the time we got back, most of the packing was already done.

_[She pauses and picks up one of the birds from her desk. It is red, and faintly resembles a canary.]_

This was my aunt’s. She had a lot of little figurines like this. She’s actually the reason I collect them. She would get them for me for my birthday, and she gave this one to me before we left her house. That was the hard part for her, trying to decide what she could take and what she had to leave. We didn’t know about the bombs then…no one knew. But after San Francisco, she knew that her house might not be there when she got back. It was rough for her, and for my cousins. I felt bad, you know? All of my stuff was safe back in Phoenix while they were debating which of their possessions were most important. I wasn’t the one having to make that decision.

_[She puts the bird back down.]_

We were packing all night…well, most of us were. My aunt went to bed at around 11:30, she was just really worn out, and me and my cousins went to bed not too long after. We were going to drive in the morning, so we had to be rested. I didn’t sleep that well. I kept thinking, “What if they’re wrong? What if that thing is moving faster than they thought and it’s going to make it here tomorrow?” I was still on-edge the next day. It was about six in the morning when we started driving out of the city, and the roads were still packed.

**Where did you head?**

South, back towards Phoenix. It’s about an eleven hour drive, longer with the traffic, but we figured, “head to LA, worst case scenario we have to stop there for the night”. But the goal was to try and get to Phoenix. I didn’t think we were going to make it even to LA, honestly. The traffic was _so_ bad. There were so many people, and even more military guys than there were the day before. I thought they were going to try some kind of last stand thing, take it out in the city. I was half-right, wasn’t I?

_[She laughs mirthlessly.]_

When you’re driving that slow, you really get to see the people you’re driving with. I saw a lot of people with their cars packed to the brim. I saw buses with people who looked homeless. One guy had a dog. When I saw the dog, I started tearing. My mom asked what was wrong I said, “They made sure the dog’s going to be okay.” Christ, what a stupid thing to get upset about.

_[She rubs her eyes.]_

Uhm…but anyway, it took us longer than usual to get out of the city. And the roads all around the city were packed, too. I remember thinking, “Well, this is one thing the movies got right”. There were a lot more military guys than you see in the movies, though. They were the only ones going into the city. Well, I say that, I saw a few civilian cars. I guessed they were going to pick up relatives or something. There were a lot of buses coming and going, too. For a while, we had the radio on, but all they were talking about was the Sacramento evacuation and how close Trespasser was getting, so we turned it off. We didn’t want to hear it.

Eventually the traffic cleared up and we started moving more quickly. We hit two rest stops on the way down. For the second stop, we found this truck station with a McDonald’s and a few other food places. We saw some other people from Sacramento there and sat near them, talked a bit. I remember they had a kid with them. He was six at the oldest. He didn’t say anything. He just looked scared. I felt really bad for him, so I bought him a Happy Meal toy. That perked him up a bit. He said that his parents said they might go to Disney Land. That was probably the only thing keeping that kid going. Edgar. That’s what his name was. I really hope that kid ended up going to Disney Land. He deserved it, after everything he’d been through.

It was probably…shoot, two, pushing three when we hit LA. We were all tired. We’d been driving almost nonstop for hours. We thought about staying, but finding a hotel was hard. Not everyone from Sacramento had gone to LA, but a lot of people had. Not to mention people from San Francisco who had made it, people from other areas where Trespasser had been…or was close to, even. It was when we were in LA that we heard how many people who _weren’t_ from Sacramento were being asked to evacuate. It wasn’t just us, it was a lot of areas around the city. We didn’t know why. No one did.

**There still wasn’t any official news about the bombs?**

No. Nothing. We just thought that they were being thorough. Better safe than sorry and all. No one knew for _sure_ that it was heading for Sacramento. It would make sense to get as many people out as possible. I think a few people joked about possibly bombing the city, but they were shut up pretty quickly. No one wanted to consider that, and anyway, it was just a rumor.

We sat down, talked about it, and decided to keep going to Phoenix. We stayed in the city long enough to get some food for the road, fill up the tank, and then we started driving again. There were fewer cars as we left the city. Even the rush hour traffic wasn’t that bad. I imagine a lot of people just stayed home and used “the world might be ending” as an excuse to miss work. We kept driving, we kept the radio off, and we made it home at about 11:30. Everyone was exhausted by then, so we just…went to bed. Didn’t turn on the news. Didn’t find out about what was going to happen to the city until after it had happened. I don’t think we wanted to know at that point. No news was better than knowing, in this case.

**Do you ever regret that? Not knowing in advance, I mean?**

_[It takes her a few minutes to respond.]_

Yeah. Sometimes.


	7. The Sixth Day

_[Iverness, Scotland. August 3, 2019.]_

_[The inside of Tamsin Sevier’s home bears a strong resemblance to a hospital room. Every surface is immaculately clean, and various equipment lies by her bed. I suspect this is why she asks to conduct the interview outside. The former Jaeger pilot wraps a blanket around her shoulders as she sits down.]_

They didn’t send us back up after the second day. Luna was pretty beat up about that. That’s just like her. She almost dies and her reaction is “Get me back up there, I can take him this time”.

_[She chuckles weakly.]_

I was mad about it, too, but I understood why. They’d already risked the lives of pilots that weren’t theirs once. Doing it a second time would be a terrible idea. They were cutting back on the air assaults anyway. They weren’t doing any good.

**So you were in still in California when they bombed Sacramento?**

Yes, we were. We might not have been able to get back in the air, but we weren’t leaving until it was over. We could’ve watched it all on TV back home, but that felt like cheating. Like quitting. Luna and I aren’t quitters.

_[As she speaks, a dog joins us on the back porch. The dog rests his head on Tamsin’s leg and wags his tail.]_

Hey, baby. We’re just talking, don’t worry.

_[She starts stroking the dog’s head as she continues speaking.]_

We knew they were going to have to do something drastic, and we heard talk of evacuations on day three. Like everyone else, we thought they were just trying to limit civilian casualties, either from Trespasser or from collateral damage. I guess I was right about the collateral damage part. I just…I didn’t know it was that desperate. I guess I should have known. After San Francisco…after everything…

_[For a moment, she falls silent.]_

The bombers took off from our base. They gathered all the personnel into the hanger bay and told us. I think we found out before the general population was told. They said that they’d been sure to minimize the fallout risk, took everything into account, had the whole of Sacramento and neighboring towns evacuated. But the second they said _nuclear weapons,_ I think a lot of people stopped paying attention. There was this hush when they said it, and then everyone started talking at once. You could have told us that things were entirely safe, and we still would have reacted the same way. Admitting that the only way to kill this thing was to drop a nuke on a civilian location? That felt like admitting defeat. I know it’s stupid, but that’s what we all felt like.

I watched the planes take off.

_[Her hand stills. The hand that is not resting on the dog’s head begins to clench and unclench.]_

I watched it all happen on the news.

_[She falls silent again, this time looking like she is in pain. The dog whines anxiously and runs back into the house. When I ask her what is wrong, I do not receive a reply. Her hand keeps moving. A nurse arrives in the back yard a few minutes later and requests that I wait in the kitchen. It is another twenty minutes before I am allowed to see Tamsin Sevier again. When I re-join her on the back porch, she looks tired.]_

Sorry you had to see that.

**Was that…**

Doesn’t matter. It’s over now.

_[We sit in silence for a few minutes.]_

…you know what scared me the most about all of it? Even after we heard that Trespasser was really dead? I kept thinking, “What if another one of those things shows up? What if we can’t get people evacuated in time? How much of the earth are we going to have to bomb to stop them?” I couldn’t stop…

_[She rubs her forehead, slightly dislodging her hat.]_

When Manila happened, I almost wasn’t surprised. I think I knew, deep down, that K-Day wasn’t the end of it. Even when I saw Trespasser go down…when I saw the pictures of its body, I knew. This wasn’t going to stop. Not for a long time.


	8. Afterward

_After the destruction of San Francisco, Tendo Choi moved back to New Mexico to be with his parents. He joined the PPDC not long after its founding. He is currently head LOCCENT Officer at the Anchorage Shatterdome, where he oversees the Breach monitors and aids in all Jaeger launches._

_Luna Pentecost would fly three other missions against the Kaiju before the founding of the PPDC. After discovering that she did not have Drift Compatibility, she instead joined the PPDC as a helicopter pilot. She and her unit carry Jaegers to their destinations and provide aerial visuals. She is currently stationed at the Vancouver Shatterdome._

_Not long after the formation of the PPDC, Naomi Sokolov became a full-time reporter for CNN. She would specialize in covering attack aftermaths and interviewing members of the PPDC’s K-Science division. Her tape of Trespasser’s attack on Antioch, California is still a part of the PPDC’s research library._

_Doctor Ed Yeo moved to California after K-Day to aid the first responders there. He remained a first responder until lung damage caused by Kaiju Blue forced him to retire from working in an emergency room. He currently works at a free clinic in Petaluma, and occasionally speaks for Kaiju Blue victim advocacy groups._

_Alison Choi also joined the PPDC not long after its formation. Unlike many who joined the Jaeger academy, she skipped the Drift compatibility techs and went directly into J-Tech. She moved up the ranks to become a Munitions Officer in the Anchorage Shatterdome. She is currently assigned to the Jaeger Gipsy Danger._

_Tamsin Sevier would go on to join the PPDC as a Jaeger pilot, and would co-pilot Coyote Tango with Stacker Pentecost for twelve missions. After the 2016 attack on Tokyo, however, she was forced to retire due to post traumatic epilepsy and radiation sickness. She currently lives in Iverness, Scotland._

_These are just six of the people who were touched in some way by the events of K-Day. Tens of thousands were lost, while tens of thousands more were displaced. Most of area from the San Francisco Bay to Sacramento is still uninhabitable due to Kaiju Blue poisoning, radiation, and the destruction left in Trespasser’s wake._

_As of the writing of this article, we have not figured out a way to close the Breach._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And on that depressing note, thus ends the fic! Thank you for reading. :) I'll probably go back and add a bit to the Foreward some day, but for now, that's all she wrote.


End file.
